04/17/2013

Sierra Club Arctic Advocates Speak Out in Washington

Record
temperatures, record storms, record droughts, record wildfires -- and record
profits for big oil and gas companies. With extreme weather fueled by the
climate crisis affecting the lives of more than 230 million Americans since
2007, calls for action are ranging from the White House to the kitchen tables
of the 77% of the country that believe climate action should be a priority for
our government. Meanwhile, well-financed fossil fuel interests are pushing
projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in America's Arctic that
would only double down on climate-disrupting dirty fuels.

This
morning, The Sierra Club hosted a briefing entitled “Protect Our Earth: Keep Dirty Fuels Underneath It” for Congressional staff to discuss the choices Congress faces for
our nation’s energy future, the costs of dirty fuels, and the potential for an
American clean energy economy that creates new jobs while securing a safer
future for our planet and our families. Speakers included Oil Change International founder Steve Kretzmann, who
discussed the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline, and Lindsey Hajduk, an
Anchorage-based Sierra Club organizer fighting to protect America’s Arctic.
Here’s what she had to say today:

Hi my name is Lindsey Hajduk and I’m the Sierra Club’s Associate
Regional Representative from Anchorage, Alaska.
I have the pleasure of working with Alaskans throughout the state, and
also with Americans all across the country that care about protecting the
Arctic.

And I’m happy to say that just last week we shared a great sense of
relief to hear that ConocoPhillips will not pursue oil exploration in the
Arctic Ocean next year. We’re relieved,
but that’s not enough. Alaskans don’t
want to go through another summer like we had with Shell Oil last year. We
were lucky that Shell’s drill rig, the Kulluk, grounding was the only major
disaster in Alaska, but that proved you can’t drill safely in the Arctic.

The Arctic is a fragile environment on the front lines of climate
change. 2012 had the lowest sea ice
cover on record. When most people think
about ice they think about it crushed in their soda, but the Arctic sea ice is
much more than that. It is its own
ecosystem thriving with Arctic cod, seals, walrus, polar bears, and more. However, it’s safe to say that in the last
twenty years half of the Arctic ice cap has melted. If we think about losing half of the Amazon
rainforest there would be alarm all over the world. We need to be alarmed about the loss in
Arctic sea ice.

The effects of climate change are already having profound impacts on
Alaskan’s everyday lives. Permafrost is
melting and shifting building foundations and roads. Wildlife migration patterns are changing,
which can mean hunters must travel further and take longer to feed their
families.

Unless you look out onto the land and ocean with an Inupiat elder you
may not realize what is at stake, but it is their livelihoods. You would see the lichen the caribou thrive
off of, the bear scat that is a sign of what’s to come or has already been, or
the spray from a bowhead whale announcing its arrival. There is a delicate balance keeping Alaska
Native communities strong, and already we may be tipping the scale.

The Arctic is changing twice as fast as the rest of the country, and its
specialized wildlife are struggling to keep up. This, in addition to burning
more fossil fuels drilled in the Arctic would be a double-whammy that we just
cannot afford.

President Obama has to prove his commitment to fight climate change by
keeping as much as 15.8 billion tons of CO2 in the ground. That’s how much greenhouse gases we’re
talking about. If we keep that oil under
the Arctic Ocean, we’d be keeping the equivalent of 13 year’s worth of US cars
and light trucks off the road. And, we’d
also be saving ourselves from disastrous drilling operations too.

Just a few months ago Alaskans and the world watched Shell Oil’s
rollercoaster 2012 program. The list of Shell’s
failed track record is extensive, including losing control of its ship at
harbor, damage to its oil spill containment dome, violating the clean air act,
illegal discharges, its rig ran aground, and both drill rigs are under criminal
investigation. It was a whirlwind of
problems Shell still tries to gloss over, but Shell took all the risks and left
all the consequences on the shoulders of Alaskans and the federal government.

Rather than opening the Arctic for more drilling, the Obama
administration should cancel offshore leases, buy them back, and put the areas
off-limits to oil and gas exploration. It’s
not as crazy as it sounds.

Drilling in the Arctic Ocean is a bad idea, and I’m not the only one
saying it. The investment company Lloyd’s
of London, the bank WestLB, the British Parliamentary Committee, and even the
oil company Total SA have all stated the risks of drilling in the Arctic Ocean are
too great and they will not support offshore drilling operations. Now, President Obama should do the same.

But that’s not all. We need to be sure to protect special areas
throughout the Arctic landscape. Politics
are pushing to drill where no companies have drilled before, including the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We have
been disappointed in Senator Lisa Murkowski, my senator, for introducing bills
to open the Arctic Refuge for oil drilling.
This is the only 5% of our Arctic coastline currently not open for oil
and gas, and critical for a caribou herd that communities depend on in Alaska
and Canada. We need common sense energy
policies to reign, not politics.

Congress needs to lead the way for renewable
energy policies that give us the energy independence we need, not put Americans
at more risk from climate change. President Obama needs to make protecting
America’s Arctic the cornerstone of his climate legacy beginning with declaring
the
Arctic Ocean and coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
off-limits to dangerous drilling.

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